CCCC Lesson 3 ~ Fleshing it out

Part 3 of the Character Creation Crash Course.

Alright! Now that you have a Skeleton for your character it's time to flesh them out. Meaning, it's time to find out what makes them tick.

You could do this a number of different ways, you could do a "chart" like we did in the last lesson only this time for internal conflicts and family history, or you could sit down and brainstorm, writing anything about the character that comes to mind down.

This part of the process is really up to you, because there isn't a write way or a wrong way of doing this (or anything else we've talked about for that matter). But my advice for this is whatever you do, make sure you write EVERYTHING and ANYTHING about the character down, even if it's something as minimal as "James fell and hit his head on the coffee table when he was nine." It may explain a scar that the character has or it might explain why they forget something so quickly.

Which gives you another possible character quirk/possible plot point! Just make sure that no matter what you write down about your character, that you make sure to be very specific and use great detail whenever you can. Because the more nit-picky details you have the better your character will turn out to be and the easier it'll be for you to get into character when you write them, because you know EVERYTHING about them! =)

After you've fleshed out your character it's time to really knuckle down and get them a setting and a story line. Or just create them a little world where they can do just about anything! It doesn't have to be fancy, or fantastical. It could just be their neighbor hood and adjacent "magical" forest. Or it could be your character's High School. The helpful thing about having a little world like this for your character is that you can sit down and write little short stories using your character(s) for practice before their really big piece. Or if you really enjoyed writing short stories about them, connect them altogether and make it a short book!

Once you have a fully, well developed character in your hands, everything will come a heck of a lot easier.